Strandings

Aotearoa New Zealand is a global hotspot for whales, but it is also a hotspot for whale strandings, with the highest rate of marine mammal strandings anywhere in the world. This is due to both our topography and to our position in the South Pacific, along the route of several migrating whale species.

Since 1840, when records of strandings began, over 13,000 individual cetaceans have stranded here. The largest recorded stranding was of around 1000 pilot whales in the Chatham Islands in 1918.

Why do whales strand?

The reasons for marine mammal strandings are still not well understood, but there are many factors that can contribute. These can include animals coming into shallow water due to illness, distress, or during a difficult birth. It is thought that the topography of the beach – gently sloping seabeds of sand and mud – can disrupt echolocation in species that use it, absorbing their sonar and giving them the impression they are in deeper water than they are.

Other causes may be reduced visibility in cloudy water or stormy seas, or as a result of mistakes made while fleeing, or seeking, prey. Environmental factors like earthquakes, magnetic anomalies or underwater volcanoes may also play a role.

Tragically, their strong social ties mean that when one whale strands, others will stay with it, or try to help, becoming stuck themselves. This, coupled with disorientation, means that even if the whales are successfully refloated, the risk of re-beaching is significant, particularly if others remain trapped.

Whale traps

^{Farewell Spit, NASA’s Earth Observatory. Free Use}

One of a handful of significant ‘whale traps’ in Aotearoa New Zealand is Farewell Spit, on the northwestern tip of the South Island. The long sandy spit curving around vast intertidal sand flats, has been the site of dozens of whale strandings since 1867, primarily of pods of migrating pilot whales, sometimes numbering in the hundreds.

Many potential deterrents to keep whales away from the over 20km stranding zone have been considered, but limitations with their logistical feasibility mean a preventative solution remains elusive. Shark nets would pose an entanglement and drowning risk, playing distress calls as a warning could inadvertently draw the animals in to help, and proposals around beacons, buoys, sonar reflectors or noise generators pose just as much of a risk of entrapping cetaceans as deterring them.

Rescue

^{Stranded Gray’s beaked whale, Narrowneck beach, Auckland, February 2006 Photograph by Gabriela de Tezanos Pinto, reproduced courtesy of Gabriela de Tezanos Pinto}

^{Stranding and release of Gray’s beaked whale using a pontoon, Narrowneck beach, Auckland, New Zealand, 24 February 2006. Photographs by Gabriela de Tezanos Pinto, reproduced courtesy of Gabriela de Tezanos Pinto}

Attempts to rescue live stranded whales are typically led by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Experts will lead the response, often assisted by large numbers of volunteers. There is a five-step response used in attempted rescues.

1. Immediate care to reduce animal stress and increase chances of survival. In this step, animals are kept moist and cool with water and wet sheets, and assisted upright if on their sides.
2. Moving of the animals to deeper (or into) water, and to bring the pod together. Pontoons, slings or tarpaulins may be used to move and refloat smaller animals.
3. Reorientation. This involves teams of people gently rocking the animal side to side in the water to re-familiarise it with moving in water. This step helps to ensure the animal is able to keep itself upright in the water (and right itself if it is tipped), and surface to breathe unassisted.
4. Release. The pod should only be released together if possible. Their strong social bonds mean that whales are known to re-strand in an attempt to get to pod members who remain trapped ashore.
5. Monitoring. Refloated whales may head back to shore for many reasons; to be with pod members remaining, or because they are groggy or disorientated. Rescuers may form a human chain, slap the water or strike metal objects to dissuade them from returning. DOC may use boats to help herd the pod into deeper water offshore.

DOC is also responsible for liaising with local iwi and hapū about the stranding, from the moment they are made aware. They work together when it comes to rescues and if unsuccessful, or the stranding discovered too late, with euthanasia, sampling, and disposal.

Customary Rights

^{[Taylor, Richard], 1805-1873 :A dead whale (humpback fish) at Tohora nui with Tareha – about 100 natives assembled to eat it. Length 33 ft. July 5th 1841. Rorqualis antarctica. Cuvier.. Taylor, Richard, 1805-1873 :Sketchbook. 1835-1860.. Ref: E-296-q-025-1. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22867961}

Today, many iwi around Aotearoa New Zealand have secured their customary rights and access to deceased stranded whales through Te Tiriti O Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi – and the Waitangi Tribunal which interprets it. This allows them to harvest resources from the deceased animals, just as their ancestors did.

The Waitangi Tribunal found, in its 2011 WAI262 Flora and Fauna report, that the Treaty ‘obliges the Crown to actively protect the continuing relationship of kaitiaki (guardians) to taonga (treasures or precious things) in the environment, as one of the key components of te ao Māori (the Māori worldview)’.

This acknowledged their right to continue their traditional tikanga (cultural practices and protocol) surrounding such an event. However, because strict conservation rules had made access to beached whale carcasses illegal until 1996, much of the mātauranga (traditional knowledge) around harvesting from whales was lost to many iwi. This mātauranga is now being actively revived and shared around the country. Increasingly, coastal iwi have created stranding protocols with the Department of Conservation to manage strandings in their rohe (region) by laying out clear objectives, procedures, and expectations.

Harvesting

^{Māori recovering jawbones from a dead whale – Photograph taken by Phil Reid. Three local Wellington area tribes have rights to remove the jawbones and teeth of dead whales, for carving. The tribes are Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, and Te Ata Iwi. In this case the removal of the jawbones was effected by Ramari Stewart, an expert in this field, who came from south Westland to do the job. (All information from the Evening Post, 20 March, 1996). Dominion Post (Newspaper): Photographic negatives and prints of the Evening Post and Dominion newspapers. Ref: EP/1996/0832/9A-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22682397.}

Part of this is the harvesting and processing (known as ‘hauhake tohorā’) of traditional resources from the creature, like spermaceti, blubber for oil, and teeth and bones for carving.

We use the blubber for melting down into oils where it can be used in things like the coating of tāonga [treasures] where bones will be used for carvings and the oil for rongoā [traditional medicine].
– Flensing Expert Dave Milner (Patu Harakeke)

We give it a name because we don’t want people to take blubber, we don’t want them to take meat. We want to make sure that it doesn’t happen. That we treat it with the respect that it deserves. It’s one of our tupuna [ancestors].

Pacific practice

Where whales or other large fish were stranded, it was the duty of the Tohunga to perform the prescribed rights necessary on such occasions, before any of the people were allowed to desecrate the beach on which the fish were either stranded or in the act of stranding. Any one coming by chance, and seeing such an occurrence, went away at once and informed the Tohunga of the district, less his presence should prevent the fish from stranding.

It was considered of the first importance that appropriate invocations and offerings should be made to Pou and Tangaroa, the head of the first fish stranded being placed on the Tuāhu, sacred to them, to induce a future recurrence of the like good fortune.

– The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Volume 3, No. 2, June 1894. “The Moriori people of the Chatham Islands: their traditions and history”, by Alexander Shand, p 76-92

In the next step, we’ll dive into the Marine Mammal Stranding Strategy of the Ngāti Ruanui iwi in Taranaki!

Further Resources

Why do marine mammals strand?, Department of Conservation

Mass whale stranding at Farewell Spit

Human chain of 150 volunteers guide 40 stranded pilot whales back to sea

Stranding, Te Papa Whale Lab

Call of the Whales – an interview with tohunga tohorā (whale expert) Ramari Stewart, New Zealand Geographic

Volunteers learn traditional sperm whale flensing, Te Ao Māori News

Te Ao Māori approaches and perspectives on whale strandings, Ngāi Tahu iwi